As a bit of background, I learnt hatha yoga in live classes taught in the conventional, progressive style for about 3 years (not in typical gym style classes). I love yoga and have been practising now for almost a decade. I cant do many advanced poses, but I am a fairly solid beginner. I can take some creativity, but by and large I like my yoga to be classic. I do power,vinyasa and even static (non flow) styles. My favorite instructors include Erich Schiffman, Rodney Yee, Shiva Rea, Sarah Kline, Janet Stone, Baron Baptist, Bryan Kest, Tilak Pyle.

I bought this set intending to use them as one off yoga classes. I am an avid cross trainer who combines weight training, yoga and conventional cardio in any given week. I did the first DVD and here I am on Day 13 of the 108 day rotation. I am not doing anything but UY yoga. In the weekend, I may swim or go for a long walk.

I have not yet done Gentle, Flexibility and Balance which feature later in the rotation. Here are my impressions of the classes I tried.

* Hardcore -The only dvd on this series that I would not call yoga (the rest are to my delight, pure and straight yoga). The first time I tried,some moves were not kind to my lower back. Some were effective and fun to do. I felt some moves in my hip flexors rather than the abs. After a few times, I have eliminated the lower back discomfort by learning better how to hold my back straight and keep the abs and lower back braced. I see similarities to Cathe's Core Max(1st routine). It is getting progressively easier to do. The first time I could barely keep up. It has no dread factor now (I have done it 6 times).
* Cross train - reminiscent of the Bryan Kest 3 DVD series (sweat, tone and energise, I think they are called) but Travis has his own style and the sequencing is different enough. Has a bit of everything - straight sun sals, sun sals with intervening poses, standing poses, balance poses, twists, backbends, forward bends. Delivers a workout combining balance, strength, heart rate elevation effect, flexibility.
* Cardio - The emphasis is sweatiness. It delivers. I don't ever remember working up such a sweat with yoga as with the first 30 minutes of this workout doing sun sal variations. Yet doable. After the 30 minute mark, the intensity drops which for me makes this workout wonderful. If it had sustained beyond the 30 minute mark, I dont think I would have done it again. 30 minutes pushed me, but never to the point that I wanted to quit. The vinyasa moves at a fast clip so I would caution someone not familiar with yoga to not try to keep pace until they were comfortable enough to get into and out of poses without compromising alignment.
* Strength - this is a good muscle endurance workout. It builds a burn in the muscles through the slow deliberate pace. But because it is still vinyasa, you don't feel "static". If the first 30 minutes of Cardio is like advanced steady state cardio, you could compare this to HIIT. You push for a while and then slow down for awhile, alternating on intensity.
* Yin - Yin yoga means so many different things. This yin session is Paul Grilley's style - long holds of poses with minimal prop usage. It is not as gruelling in pose selection as Grilley (I remember needing to sustain through pain in Grilley's Yin), and it shows less intense variations of some poses. You hold (mainly hip and low back opening) poses for 3 - 5 minutes. I prefer Paul Grilley's DVD for one aspect, as it has more than one routine. So if you cycled through Grilley, you would equally open up all parts of the body instead of so much for the hips.
* Detox - Power yoga meets twisting poses. Nice sequencing. If the other workouts so far, show a Bryan Kest influence, you see that Travis trained with Shiva Rea here. It is moderate on the intensity scale but not at all unchallenging. Some poses like the twisting cobra I member seeing in a Janet Stone DVD (she trained with Shiva too). The pinnacle pose or climax is twisting half moon. You are fully prepped to execute. I surprised myself with a decently aligned, stable version.
*Vitality - In this class, Power yoga meets backbends. If Detox is 50-50 between Bryan and Shiva influences, this is 20-80. There are two pinnacle poses here - bow pose done three times for 5, 10 and 15 breaths each, and wheel (or bridge) done 3 times again for 5,10,15 breaths. You also do three breath of fire sessions in chair during this workout, but they are not too long (about 30-40 breaths long, and yes, I counted).
* Mountain Pose - This was a dud for me. I appreciate gentle yoga but I did not understand the point of this session. You stand in Mountain Pose and move hour hands around. You do a couple of nice poses like a standing twist and malasana that feel good, but only after a lot of stuff that bored me. This balances the chakras as per the introduction. I must have chakras that stubbornly want no balancing. It is good to have this in the rotation. It is featured once every week. I can use it as a catch up day because on any given week, there tends to be a busy day when I end up missing a workout.

The Shiva influences in Travis workouts are my favourite bits from her style.
* loosening up the spine and back muscles from rhythmic, large-range rotational movements
* working in sustained horse stance or plié for a few minutes
* plank (or down dog) core work (raise one leg bring it to core, bring it to opposite side....)
* graceful flows back and forth around down dog and plank with some cobra or child's pose or table thrown in
* interesting arm and back bend variations in traditional standing poses.
Shiva can get too undulating or free form for me at times, but Travis keeps things straightforward.

The Bryan Kest influences are the variation from slow and fast movement through poses and the emphasis on more accessible poses that don't require advanced skills, but are still challenging.

I like that he uses shoulder stand, plough and wheel (always with bridge as an option) frequently. I miss them in many of my otherwise favourite yoga workouts.

He also knows his sequencing. The prepping poses, and counter poses mean you never end a session feeling stress in some body part. I must correct that. My back was very uncomfortable after yin, but after a while had passed, my back felt fabulous like it had been massaged.

The production quality is outstanding. Music is like a movie background score.

Instructor Comments:
Travis has a great personality. I love his sense of humor. He makes me laugh out loud at least once per class. I don't mind his voice at all that was mentioned in some early VF threads. As I do more of his yoga, I am beginning to like it more.

vee